Michael Rogers, a blogger who was on NewsChannel 8 promoting “Outrage,” a new documentary on closet homosexual politicians and activists who “out them.” Rogers could barely get his promotional explanation out on what the video entails, which is the sole purpose he was invited on the show.
Isn’t that the old adage? The shoemakers children don’t have shoes? That’s what I think of when I read the Feb. 10 review of “PR: A Persuasive Industry” in USA Today.
The article starts out with this…
Sleazy. Disingenuous. These are words used in U.K. newspaper coverage of the public relations industry. PR, oddly enough, doesn’t have great PR. People tend to think that PR involves being manipulative and saying whatever is in the employer’s best interests.
Gee. Allow me to keep reading.
(The authors) call PR an amoral industry, a tool for good or evil purposes. There was, alas, Hitler, Goebbels, and the Nazi propaganda machine.
More? Why make my face more red that it is right now? Stop reading! I can’t…it’s like a traffic accident. Must…keep…reading.
I’ve not read this book, but the reviewer goes on to say that in the book the authors debate whether or not it is the role of a PR professional to tell the truth.
I am here to tell you that every journalist (both traditional and new) I’ve ever worked with would tell me where to stick it if I ever lied to them. If a client asked us to lie (and it has happened), we immediately resign the business.
I’m also here to tell you that PR professionals live by a Code of Ethics and I’ve seen people kicked out of industry organizations for displaying anything but professionalism. So there are good and bad in every profession. Until you walk a day (or five) in our shoes, let’s leave the negativeness and bashing alone.
My friend Eric Seidel is a professional media trainer who has worked both on the media side and the client side. He has Fortune 100 experience and works with top executives.
He recently wrote a blog post called, “Get ‘spin’ out of your lexicon.” He goes on to say it’s bad for your business health because “reporters know when you’re spinning and they use it as motivation to really dig in their heels and come after you.” Check out the post – it has a great case study via video about Jet Blue.
But this isn’t just for clients. Yes, it’s our job to teach our clients how to work with the media, but it is not our job to teach them how to spin, lie, or evade the media. Our job is not to spin. Our job is to help our clients communicate with their customers via the media by being honest, open, and transparent.
Let’s do our jobs.
I am a Beatles fan — not an over-the-top fan — but I have traveled to Beatles Fest, I own a few books and some memorabilia, and I did brag about having a two-minute conversation with George Harrison’s sister for about six months. So why am I just now hearing about John Lennon coming back to life to endorse The One Laptop Per Child Foundation?
The creepy thing is not that they used old images, not that they used old sound bites, but that they had an impersonator do voice over “putting words into the late endorser’s mouth,” according to Technologizer.
Check it out for yourself, here. Continue Reading »
Every night I watch CBS2Chicago news leading right into David Letterman’s hilarious opening act. I love the first 20 minutes of Letterman! This past Monday, there was a very interesting story about a company, Environmental Technical Institute (ETI), pitching future employees into buying what ETI has to offer. Continue Reading »
Dan Abrams, the former general manager of MSNBC, is launching a media-strategy firm, according to today’s Wall Street Journal. His advantage is using a panel of journalists if your company faces a difficult public relations isssue to “weigh in on how media outlets would likely respond to different PR strategies.”
One of Abrams’s investors believes “big companies will be attracted to its ‘expert network’ and it’s pay-per-use model.”
Isn’t this a conflict of interest? Since when do journalists moonlight as business consultants? Isn’t our industry trying to stay away from this type of model, citing ethics?
What do you think?
As the presidential election closes in on its final days, I want to look to the media for answers. I want to know who’s really in the lead. I want to know who won the debates. I want to know the facts – the accurate, clean-cut, straight-up facts. Can I get a straight answer out of anyone?!
It seems as though the media carelessly reveals different poll statistics and results every day. I don’t know what to trust.
Over the past couple years posting on FADS I have come to find that spin can appear in all shapes and sizes. Spin doesn’t hate against color or race or religion or class. But how do you spot spin? The real question is; how do you know when you’re being spun?
Wait until next year
Another year is wasted. T-shirts with beer stains and tears permanently on them are now tucked away in dressers; hats are place neatly on bedroom racks, and bank accounts of many Wrigleyville residents are showing signs of normalcy — well, at least mine is. Yes, the Chicago Cubs 2008 season is over with…and man did I fight the keyboard to type that sentence.
A spin spotter? Come on. First of all it’s one thing to push blame of spin on PR people but how lazy do we think newspapers are that they need spinoculars?
Apparently, there is a new program for journalists to download and it catches any bias or spin in their pieces. As Katherine asks the question herself “do you think this product is performing a task that editors and newspapers should be doing themselves?” Continue Reading »
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